Monday, December 24, 2007

If you ever needed an excuse to miss the movie "I am Legend" starring Will Smith, Smith himself might provide you with adequate reason.

Actors are people naturally gifted with panache and self-esteem (sometimes unnecessarily.) Rich actors are able to add to that arsenal a platform in which to use the first two gifts. Unfortunately, actors are no more gifted than the salesman, the farmer, the engineer, the housewife, the auto worker, the doctor, the retiree, the architect, the teacher, the clerk, the butcher, the baker or the friggen candlestick maker when it comes to things such as intelligence, analytical ability, or common sense. Actors simply have the gall to say whatever flies into one ear and a tall soapbox from which to project that minuscule thought onto the rest of us.

So, when Will Smith tells you that Hitler was basically a good person, you can be quite certain that Mr. Smith, though a good actor, heaped in self esteem, loaded with flair and blessed with riches, is little more than an arrogant and distressingly loud idiot.

Omar Bakri has every reason to hate the west. After being booted from Saudi Arabia many years ago, he set up shop in London where he and his large family lived with their noses in the public trough for some 19 years. So, of course, hating the West and all things Western is more than understandable.

Now Bakri, as reported in The Daily Mail, has a few items on his Christmas wish list:

MAUSTON, Wis. - Capt. Scott Southworth knew he'd face violence, political strife and blistering heat when he was deployed to one of Baghdad's most dangerous areas. But he didn't expect Ala'a Eddeen.

Ala'a was 9 years old, strong of will but weak of body — he suffered from cerebral palsy and weighed just 55 pounds. He lived among about 20 kids with physical or mental disabilities at the Mother Teresa orphanage, under the care of nuns who preserved this small oasis in a dangerous place.

Friday, December 21, 2007

Several months ago, Tiny Muskens, the retiring Roman Catholic Bishop of the Netherlands, decided it would be best to dispense with all the different names for God and embrace the name Allah.

"Allah is a very beautiful word for God. Shouldn't we all say that from now on we will name God Allah? ... What does God care what we call him? It is our problem."

Well, apparently it is more than just our problem as the Malaysian government has decided that Allah is only the name of the Muslim God.

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia: A Catholic weekly newspaper in Malaysia has been told to drop the use of the word "Allah" in its Malay language section if it wants to renew its publishing permit, a senior government official said Friday.

The Herald, the organ of Malaysia's Catholic Church, has translated the word God as "Allah" but it is erroneous because Allah refers to the Muslim God, said Che Din Yusoff, a senior official at the Internal Security Ministry's publications control unit.

"Christians cannot use the word Allah. It is only applicable to Muslims. Allah is only for the Muslim god. This is a design to confuse the Muslim people," Che Din told The Associated Press.

It is pretty sad Bishop Muskens, when you cannot even appease properly. Why don't you just start praying toward Mecca and get it over with?

Two interesting posts by Christopher Johnson at the Midwestern Conservative Journal. The first, Stepping In It, refers to the Archbishop of Canterbury's feeling that much of the Christmas story is little more than a "legend." Johnson is quite familiar with Rowan Williams, the Archbishop, and he is not at all surprised.

One could argue that chipping away at this or that aspect of the story undermines the reliability of the Gospel accounts. And if one is permitted to "reinterpret" minor aspects of the story, major ones may soon come under suspicion. Including the most important part of all.

Once again, all this is standard-issue leftist western Anglican thinking and is the reason that people are beating down the doors of Church of England, Anglican Church of Canada and Episcopal churches these days[/sarcasm]. Dr. Williams may have been his usual clumsy, tone-deaf self but I don't see anything here that warrants such a firestorm.

The second article is titled Ichabod and it discusses the Rev. Anne Fowler's personal testimony on why abortion was just peachy for her and why it might be just as peachy for everyone else. As Johnson writes:

The Rev. Anne Fowler demonstrates once again that the Episcopal "Church" is no longer Christian in any meaningful sense[...]

One really has to wonder what it is about governments in general and the State of Michigan in particular that makes bureaucrats believe that our benevolent leaders in Lansing have the ability to do much of anything other than collect a pay check.

Our state is awash in red ink and is falling farther and farther behind states such as Indiana, Texas, North Carolina and even, gasp, Alabama in its quest for job creation. Our public schools are far from the top, our roads and bridges brittle, and our prisons overcrowded and poorly staffed. Unemployment? Well, it is high. Our tax base? Shrinking. The only measurable statistic by which Michigan is at the top or near the top is in out-of-state bound rental moving trucks.

So, what could an elected offical, buoyed by our state's stunning success in all other areas of governance, be expected to do other than to try and get the state to assume even more responsibility over our lives? Well, today's hero for the masses is Lt. Gov. John Cherry who, among others, is planning on launching a petition to put on Michigan's ballot a proposal to provide universal state wide health care coverage. Now, who could ever envision anything going wrong with that?

A campaign that claims support from key Michigan labor and religious groups, the AARP and Lt. Gov. John Cherry who plans to launch a petition drive next month to ask Michigan voters to approve statewide, universal health care.

The coalition would amend the state constitution to require the Legislature to enact "affordable and comprehensive health care coverage" in the same way the constitution mandates state support of free public education.

Health Care for Michigan, headed by former state Rep. John Freeman, an Oakland County Democrat, is to appear today before a state elections panel to ask for approval of its petition forms. But the campaign is already well under way, spokesman Gary Benjamin said Tuesday. The group's polling shows broad popular support for the idea, he said.

The amendment would "create a duty to provide health care coverage for everyone," Benjamin said. "But it's not a plan; it's a constitutional amendment."

This ought to make Michigan more competitive in the job's marketplace--a burdensome tax placed on the backs of employers who only have to move across the state boundary to avoid the red tape and financial burden. All this while being able to relocate their staff (and in case no one noticed, their taxpaying staff) to a locale where vastly superior private health care providers are in charge of the medical field.

Let me get this straight--after all the difficulties this state has experienced over the past few years, the best thing these socialists have to offer Michigan job creators is an added incentive to pull up roots and move elsewhere? Wow, that is a real accomplishment. Maybe we aren't being blown away but we are certainly being swept away.

Alas, this looks like a program that could see massive support among Democrats. What's not to like? We can always worry about paying the bill later.

From the right flap of the good Congressman's PDF file delivered to me in my e-mail:

Congressman Bart StupakWants to Hear From You!

1. The war in Iraq is not working and I'm fighting in Congress to change the course. I want to hear what you think. Do you believe we should:

___Stay the course

___Continue to fund the war, but set a timetable

___Redeploy our troops

___Immediately withdraw

___Other: ___________________________

Mr. Stupak, it is less than honest to submit a form to me that requires my agreement with your assessment that "the war in Iraq is not working" when it is my intent to give you an honest answer while also disagreeing with your opinion.

That big slot machine of international aid came up 7-7-7 for the wannabe state of Palestine when the dhimmi league of free Earth pledged more than $7 billion in aid today. Major donors include the EU, US, UK, Japan, Germany, France and Korea.

Notably absent from the list of known money pledging countries were any oil rich Arab or Muslim states.

Sad news out of Maine today. Dan Fogelberg has died of prostate cancer.

One of the most memorable concerts I ever attended was at Reunion Arena in Dallas back in 1983 with Dan Fogelberg performing. I had two front row seats for a solo acoustic performance and I was lucky enough to be able to attend with the beautiful Jyme Borges. It was an evening I will never forget.

An article today in FrontPageMag highlights that oddest of marriages between St. Paul's United Methodist Church in Baltimore, with Red Emma's, an activist group of anarchists. A portion of the story:

Red Emma's, an anarchist bookstore and café in Baltimore, has come to the rescue of struggling St. Paul's United Methodist Church, whose originally female pastor now claims to be a man.

The Baltimore Sun published an entertaining piece on November 27 about the new anarcho-Methodist partnership, though it omitted the transsexual angle. "Anarchists and Methodists may seem like unlikely business partners," the Sun reported understatedly. But this "quirky venture" has brought "new energy" to the small congregation, whose doors might otherwise shut without the infusion of anarchist funds.

"It's a crazy little project," anarchist Kate Khatib of Red Emma's explained to the Sun. "There are not many churches that would reach out to a bunch of crazy anarchists, and there are not many anarchists that would reach out to a bunch of crazy Methodists."

I suppose though that partnerships among crazies are a bit more common than partnerships formed between crazies and people of more lucid texture.

After reading the whole article I couldn't help but wonder which namesake would be least pleased with such a partnership--St. Paul or Red Emma?

Thursday, December 13, 2007

I was unfortunately exposed to some of the Democrat debate earlier today.

It becomes clearer to me every time I am so exposed that I have very little in common with the modern Democrat Party. I am also convinced that the founding fathers had even less in common with this generation's collection of socialist utopians and nannystate activists.

There is not an existing problem in this country or on the face of this Earth for that matter, that the blathering leftists on the panel of rhetoricians do not have a solution for--and each of these solutions involves taking money from citizens and redistributing that income to the laboratory of social experimentation. And, even when they do absently recognize that families and individuals have some responsibility for our society's outcomes, they ricochet off that notion headlong into even more eloquent platitudes that describe why people cannot survive without the government's benevolent hand.

According to that esteemed group health care is a civil right, schools are failing because they are underfunded, all of our foreign policy problems are the cause of cowboy diplomacy and our disrespect of other cultures, corporations are evil and we must take our democracy back. We need to tax more, fund more, regulate more, legislate more, mandate more, steer more and talk more. Oh, and Iowa is a really cool place.

At one point toward the end John Edwards even had the audacity to proclaim that the founding fathers did not intend for things to turn out this way--as if they would embrace the socialist policies of Edwards and remove from citizens the responsibilities of self preservation and sustenance and place these sacred charges on the doorstep of government--like some abandoned baby, which is probably where pre-Kindergarten comes in, now that I think of it.

My personal opinion is that if any of the founding fathers ever met John Edwards in an alley he would get his ass beaten for uttering such a blatant misrepresentation. And for the hair.

£50.00 - larger version - perfect for a church - complete with a detachable separation barrier that can be replaced by a more traditional stable. (There is an additional charge of £7.00 for postage and packing)

Currently sold out of both sizes - we are waiting for further supplies to come in from Bethlehem.

What is not indicated by the craftsmen or Amos Trust is whether suicide vests are being worn under the clothing of the three men of middle eastern descent. No bigger than that fence is though I think an explosives laden vehicle could blow up those Jews in no time.

Those behind this, whether they are in the Amos Trust or simply talked those in the Amos Trust into this act of vulgar antisemitism, are either sly and sinister, or possibly merely completely ignorant. They demonstrate either willful denial or complete ignorance of the history of the Arab Muslim war on non-Muslims, a permanent war if not always open warfare, and that is not limited to that focus of the world's media, the siege of Israel.

Wednesday, December 12, 2007

A WEST Australian medical expert wants families to pay a $5000-plus "baby levy" at birth and an annual carbon tax of up to $800 a child.

Writing in today's Medical Journal of Australia, Associate Professor Barry Walters said every couple with more than two children should be taxed to pay for enough trees to offset the carbon emissions generated over each child's lifetime.

Professor Walters, clinical associate professor of obstetric medicine at the University of Western Australia and the King Edward Memorial Hospital in Perth, called for condoms and "greenhouse-friendly" services such as sterilisation procedures to earn carbon credits.

And he implied the Federal Government should ditch the $4133 baby bonus and consider population controls like those in China and India.

Professor Walters said the average annual carbon dioxide emission by an Australian individual was about 17 metric tons, including energy use.

"Every newborn baby in Australia represents a potent source of greenhouse gas emissions for an average of 80 years, not simply by breathing but by the profligate consumption of resources typical of our society," he wrote.

There is hypocrisy and then there is, what I like to call, plausible inhypocrisy. They are, of course, exactly the same thing in function, it is just that in the second version the perpetrators have created an intricate network of excuses to fend off the charges of hypocrisy they know that will be coming.

Dec. 6 (Bloomberg) -- Government officials and activists flying to Bali, Indonesia, for the United Nations meeting on climate change will cause as much pollution as 20,000 cars in a year.

The delegates each will produce an average 4.07 metric tons of carbon dioxide, or CO2, to reach the resort island 950 kilometers (600 miles) from Jakarta, according to estimates e- mailed to Bloomberg by the UN agency holding the conference.

Some of the 187 nations participating in the two-week forum promised to offset their so-called carbon footprint by planting trees or buying emission credits. The symbolic actions won't help stop global warming, some scientists say.

Here is a novel idea. Plant some trees, stay home, do a teleconference.

``It's very hard for the public to understand that you come together with so many people to a very distant place and cause a lot of emissions, and at the same time talk about emission reductions,'' Artur Runge-Metzger, head of climate strategy for the European Commission, said yesterday in an interview in Bali, adding that he had offset his own emissions.

Dude, I understand that you've done it and I also understand that you want to see an exotic island beach a few times in your life. Just don't tell me that I'm too dumb to understand that what you are doing will positively impact our world and that the emissions you have created in this debacle are somehow excusable while my car's 28 mpg are somehow inappropriate--at least I'm driving to work to make a living.

Indonesia will plant 79 million trees to offset the entire conference's emissions, Emil Salim, head of the host country's delegation, told reporters yesterday in Bali. The Asian nation is investigating how to develop its tree-planting activity to ensure a lasting offset, said Amanda Katili, special assistant to Environment Minister Rachmat Witoelar.

``We have to know where the trees will be planted and make sure that they grow and not be cut down until they make enough carbon stock,'' Katili said in an interview.

Wow, that is pretty impressive. The problem being, of course, that it is not a permanent solution. Trees are essentially carbon storage devices. When the trees die and decay begins the decaying process, in addition to the carbon that is no longer stored by the living plants, yield a net (though small) increase in overall carbon. The science here is decidedly incomplete and at best the global warming community is acting on insufficient data. Nice try though.

The U.K.'s 40-person team will have their emissions neutralized through a central government fund, a spokeswoman for the country's environment department said.

EU Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas and three of his staff are buying so-called carbon credits, each representing a reduction of a ton of carbon dioxide, on the EU Emissions Trading Scheme, commission spokeswoman Barbara Helfferich said in a telephone interview.

Essentially these people are producing carbon and hoping someone else will not produce offsetting carbon in the future (either through carbon producing abstinence or through technology advances produced by the offset investment.) Well, if the financial offset is that effective, why not stay home (a gain in carbon reduction) and also pay someone else not to produce any? At least in this scenario there would be a measurable gain in the war against emissions and not just a hopeful "offset" portion of the equation providing only theoretical benefits.

Meanwhile 10,000 conference delegates are talking away on an exotic tropical island trying to set up some rules that will apply to the rest of us that don't have the money to pay for someone else to go carbonless. And they are not hypocrites, they really aren't. Just ask them. They have the answers all worked out.

Wednesday, December 05, 2007

Another maladjusted narcissist takes the lives of others in a big bang designed to do nothing else than to create fame for the shooter.

And the media are more than willing to provide.

As I said after the last shooting of this type, we need to deny these murderous bastards any personal attention. Sure, report the event. Report the dead. Report the tragedy in its fullest but for one item...do not provide the shooter one ounce of fame. Deny him. No picture. No name. No headstone. Nothingness.

News of the Omaha shooting has gone world wide, as it should. Tragedies of this type will be reported. But the picture and name of the perpetrator should be squelched by a self-censoring media.

As evidence of the worldwide spread of this story, the BBC has an article on their website (that I will not link to because it provides him the fame he so desired) that refers to the cretin's want of glory mentioned in his suicide note:

The note went on to say he wanted to be famous, she said.

This underneath his now world-known face and name.

Today the next shooter is cleaning his weapon and practicing on targets. Just for the fame.

Tuesday, December 04, 2007

A lot has been said about the conference in Annapolis that was ramrodded into being by the likes of Condi Rice and George Bush. Organized to get the mid-east peace process back on track again, this particular conference had more to say about the US and President Bush than it had potential for any substantive solutions. Olmert is gravely unpopular in Israel while Abbas doesn't even represent Hamas, the ruling party in Gaza. According to some, the most positive development of the conference took place before it even began as Saudi Arabia agreed to participate.

It gave a lot of people the warm fuzzies to think that everyone on all sides would be sitting together at the same table breaking bread, discussing issues and moving forward together in peace.

Or not.

Powerline has a short post on the conference that points out the depths the US is willing to delve in order to appear to the world that it is a peacemaker.